Anticipation.
Plaudits accrued on its long and winding journey through the global festival circuit.
Enjoyment.
Naveriani is a natural filmmaker, and she’s gifted with a perfect lead performance for the material.
In Retrospect.
This will likely be a fair few people’s low-key fave of 2024.
Elene Naveriani’s delightful, eccentrically-titled Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry offers a celebration of the fact that we are all masters of our own destiny, even when hampered by fear, self-loathing and even an arrogant belief that a decision made in the past shall forever strand in the changeable present.
Eka Chavleishvili stars as Etero, a curmudgeonly grocery shop owner and a sad-sack rock of the local community, who due to a near-death experience while blackberry picking, suddenly decides to neglect her 40-plus year stretch of militantly self-imposed sexual abstinence and engage in a secret affair with her long-time delivery guy. Once the day has been well and truly seized (on the floor of the store cupboard, no less) Etero must interact with friends and family in a way where her sudden, enlightened change of lifestyle remains hidden from all.
Get more Little White Lies
For someone whose personality is defined by a sense of stoicism and practicality, that’s not too difficult to uphold. But, the encounters and dates with her new lover bring with them all manner of heretofore untapped anxieties. The film is beautifully staged and executed, maintaining well-defined emotional contours and never allowing things to descend into mainstream sentimentalism. Hopefully when the inevitable American remake comes along they don’t crud it up too badly.
Little White Lies is committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them.
